nly looked very fresh and tempting, with their glossy white
tops and soft pink gills.

"Thank you, my darling," said his mother, stroking the brown hair back
from his bright face, "I shall like them very much."

At this moment Willie caught sight of a little black head and a pair of
bright eyes between the fir-branches.

"Mother," he whispered, pointing to the branch, "that's our Blackbird.
He's fond of blackberries; he was eating some in the hedge the other
day--I saw him. I have a few in the corner of the basket here. I'll
throw them to him."

A few blackberries were scattered on the grass on the other side of the
fir-tree, and Willie moved a little further off, for fear the Blackbird
should be shy.

"These nuts are for your dessert, mother," he continued, holding out the
hazel branch in triumph.

"It is very good of my little boy to think of mamma," said his mother.
"Isn't it, Barlow?" she said, turning to that rather exhausted person,
who now came slowly up.

Nurse Barlow had not had a happy afternoon. She had been toiling through
the lanes after Willie and his papa. The lanes were muddy, they had gone
a long way, and she was very tired. She had made up her mind that the
mushrooms were toadstools. It is true that they had come from a meadow
in the neighbourhood where excellent mushrooms were wont to grow, but
all the same, she was fully persuaded that these particular ones were
toadstools, "just such as my poor sister's little boy nearly died of
eating."

Then again Master Willie had eaten "pounds of blackberries, let alone
those nasty nuts."

It turned out that Nurse Barlow's fears were happily unfounded, for
Willie's papa had forbidden the consumption of nuts and limited the
quantity of blackberries.

Notwithstanding these assurances, "Nanny" refused to be comforted, and
as she tucked Willie in his little bed, she soothingly remarked, "A nice
lot of physic I shall have to give you. Then you'll have to stay
indoors, and you'll both be very cross and very tiresome; I know what it
will be."

That night Willie's dreams were troubled, but they were mingled with a
deep bliss notwithstanding. He seemed to be wandering through endless
lanes where thousands of ripe and gigantic blackberries grew on all
sides,--they actually seemed to bend forward and drop into his basket as
he passed. Hazel-nuts were there also, of a marvellous size, and very
brown and sweet, browner and sweeter than any he ever remembered t